The choir is performing a Broadway Revue this Saturday night with music from Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, and The Sound of Music. Here we are practicing, with yours truly in the front row (the perks of being petite). I’ve got just about all the music memorized. Now if I could just find a costume . . .
Picture courtesy of Tanya and her cell phone. 
. . . there are no love bugs.
On a trip to visit my parents, Roger and I turned onto one of the many back roads in Wilmer and were pelted with splatterings to the windshield. Like any born and raised Gulf Coast girl, I knew exactly what was happening – love bugs flying like mindless idiots. There are so many of them that you often mistake them for rain, until you realize wait, rain doesn’t leave smudges . . . ewww. Welcome to Alabama my friends!
The curious thing is, I hadn’t realized it was love bug season yet (oh yes, there’s a season – the bugs show up twice a year every year). And that’s when I fell in love with Atlanta all over again. Sure, we drive on 7 lanes of I-75 in mind-numbing traffic while risking our lives as we dodge 18-wheelers trying to merge onto 285. But I’ll take it any day over swarms of love bugs.
However, mosquitoes do inhabit Atlanta. I should know. I was bit 7 times this weekend. And I won’t mention the huge black spiders I’ve seen in our garage (even Roger thinks they’re big).
Attention all bugs: you can bite me! Well, you know what I mean.
This weekend we went with Nate and Katie to the Georgia Renaissance Festival. I hadn’t been to a ren fest since moving to Atlanta so I was looking forward to it. It’s a great festival – lots to see and do – and it’s huge. We spent about 3 hours just walking around. We also saw two Barely Balanced Acrobat shows, and both were incredibly funny and impressive. Roger ate a turkey leg (I grabbed a bite – delicious!), and I had a bread bowl of spinach and artichoke dip with a bottle of diet coke – surely, the meal served to King Author’s knights of the round table.
The Barely Balanced acrobats…
They’re all helping to send a mission team to Ecuador! This weekend, the Wilmer UMC Ecuador Mission Team is holding a crawfish boil and silent auction to raise money for the trip. I was tasked with making the flyer:
Doesn’t the crawfish with a chef’s hat just crack you up? Last weekend Roger and I hauled all of our auction items down to my parents’. Then Mom and I put together baskets for each item. We learned that working with cellophane is NOT FUN. Sure, we laughed plenty, but a lot of it was out of frustration over what we dubbed the cello-PAIN.
However, we managed to finish a few baskets. This one is full of fancy hair products donated by Rick and Leslie (thanks guys!). I almost kept the Green Tea shampoo for myself, because it smells so good.
Mom bought shrink wrap this week and reported that it was much easier to deal with. So the rest of the baskets won’t cause the drama we experienced late Saturday night.
If you’ll be in town May 2, check out the auction and food. It’s for a good cause, and the company will be great. If you won’t be in town, but you still want to help out, you can send donations directly to the church:
Wilmer UMC
P.O. Box 156
Wilmer, AL 36587
Be sure to write “Ecuador Mission” on the check. Or you can give donations to me and Roger, and we’ll get it to the right place. Thanks for everyone’s support!
Last weekend Roger and I went to a play version of To Kill a Mockingbird. The play is presented in Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee’s home town. The town puts on the play each year, and I’ve wanted to go forever. If you haven’t read Mockingbird, go out today and get it. It was one of my favorite books as a kid, and I was lucky enough to teach it to a class of high school freshmen – and they actually LIKED it. I knew it was special then.
We got to the courthouse early to grab seats and then explored the town a little.
The play is fun. It starts outside the courthouse with a small set of house fronts. Then it moves into the courthouse for the trial and final scenes.
My only criticism is that the play version is a little preachy (the book is more subtle about the issues of classism and racism), and they leave out most of the Boo Radley stuff. So anything dealing with Boo later seems really forced. But that being said, I still had a great time.